It's the same advice that mothers everywhere have been giving for years, but now there's science to back it up: Eating veggies is good for the eyes. A new study from the University of Wisconsin confirmed that women who have a healthy diet, exercised regularly and didn't smoke were less likely to suffer macular degeneration as they got older. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision problems in older people in the United States, researchers said.

The study of 1,313 women from Oregon, Iowa and Wisconsin is the first to look at several lifestyle factors that influenced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a release from the university. These findings show a healthy lifestyle can improve the chances of good eyesight for those who inherit the condition, according to Dr. Julie Mares of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

According to the study, 18 percent of women deemed to have unhealthy lifestyles developed early AMD while just 6 percent of women in the healthy-lifestyle group developed the condition. Researchers found that the association of healthy eyes and healthy overall diets was stronger than what they observed for any single nutrient. Women whose diet score was the in top 20 percent had a 50 percent lower prevalence of early stages of macular degeneration than woman with the lowest percent for healthy diet scores. Higher scores were given to those with more leafy green and orange vegetables, fruits, dairy, grains and legumes, according to the release.

Mares said this was the first study where researchers found higher levels of physical activity lowered the likelihood of early macular degeneration. However, this study didn't show obesity was related to AMD, but obese women were more likely to have more macular degeneration. That trend was explained by a poor diet and low physical activity, according to the university. The study also confirmed other studies that smoking played a role in eye disease.

The university said the study is being published online in the Archives of Ophthalmology, a journal of the American Medical Association. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Eye Institute. It was also supported by the Research to Prevent Blindness and the Retina Research Foundation.